Brian Lopes — The BMX Kid Who Became a Four-Time Mountain Bike World Champion
BMX Racing History · Rider Profile · Legend Bike Co
Brian Lopes
Here is something I don't say lightly. When I built the very first Supercross BMX frame back in 1989, Brian Lopes was one of the kids it was built to put on the gate. Him, Billy Harrison, Glenn Pavlosky, Brian "Bogi" Givens, Kiyomi Waller. That was the TECH Racing team, and that frame was the reason Supercross exists at all. So I have a soft spot for this one. I watched this kid up close.
And let me tell you, he could go.
Lopes started at four and a half years old. A Schwinn Pixie and a Rams football helmet, out at Saddleback Park. By the time he hit the National scene as a teenager, the speed was obvious to anybody paying attention. He came up through SE Racing. Toby Henderson, who was helping out at a local shop with gate starts, saw what the kid had and pointed SE his direction. That is how these things happened back then. Word of mouth and a fast kid.
I have my own SE story tangled up in this. When SE Racing tried to get going again in the mid-80s, Mike at SE built a stretched PK Ripper for Brian Lopes. Longer wheelbase, more room to move. And it worked great. Watching that bike work was part of what pushed me to design the SE Assassin, and the Assassin was part of what led me to start Supercross. So Lopes is woven into my early story whether he knows it or not. The fast kid on the stretched Ripper helped point me down the road I'm still on.
Pro at 17, the same year I started Supercross
Brian turned pro at seventeen. That was 1989 — the exact year I founded Supercross BMX. Two things happening at once, both of them just getting started.
His first pro race, he took second. Within five races he was AA, the top class. That is not normal. Most riders grind for a year or two to crack AA. Lopes did it in a month of weekends. He raced as a pro on Elf Bicycles, then moved over to Mongoose. And that move is where the whole story turns, because Mongoose is what got him onto a mountain bike.
The switch that made him a legend
Brian had heard the ex-BMX guys were making real money racing mountain bikes. Mongoose gave him a shot. He took it. He made his pro mountain bike racing debut in 1993, and what happened after that is one of the best second acts in the history of the sport.
Four UCI Mountain Bike World Championship titles. Six UCI World Cup overall titles. Nine NORBA National Championships, in both downhill and dual slalom. He owned dual slalom and then four-cross — the close-quarters, bar-to-bar gravity stuff that looks the most like BMX of anything in mountain biking. Which makes sense. That is exactly where a BMX kid's instincts pay off. He even held world records for bunny hopping, height and distance both. USA Today once called him the best all-around world-class cycling athlete out there.
Think about what that takes. He didn't just dabble. He went from BMX pro to the most-winning male racer in mountain bike World Cup history. The BMX gate built the foundation. He said as much himself.
Both halls of fame
Here is the part that ties the whole thing in a bow. In 2008, Brian Lopes was inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame and the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in the same year. Two sports. Two halls. One rider.
Not many people pull that off. You can count them without using all your fingers. To be great enough in BMX to make the hall, then go to a completely different sport and be great enough to make that hall too — that is rare air. The BMX world claimed him. The mountain bike world claimed him. Both were right.
I'm proud the Supercross story brushed up against his early on. The kid on the stretched Ripper turned into one of one. Funny how that works.
Sources don't pin down the exact years of all four of Brian's World Championship titles, and his World Cup race-win count gets reported a little differently from place to place — some say 25 wins, some say 26, depending on what's being counted. The four World Championship titles, six World Cup overall titles, and nine National Championships are consistent across his own site, the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, and Wikipedia. We've also seen his amateur BMX run credited to SE Racing and his first pro sponsor listed as Elf Bicycles before Mongoose; if you have race programs or photos that fill in the exact title years, send them our way and we'll update the page.
Sources
- Early Supercross BMX history, the TECH Racing team, the stretched SE PK Ripper, and the SE Assassin connection — firsthand account from Bill Ryan, founder of Supercross BMX.
- ABA BMX Hall of Fame 2008 induction press release (Brian Lopes bio: Saddleback Park, age 4½, SE Racing, Toby Henderson, turned pro at 17, Elf Bicycles, Mongoose) — leelikesbikes.com/brian-lopes-inducted-into-the-bmx-hall-of-fame.html
- Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, 2008 inductee profile (World Cup wins, four World Championship titles, nine National titles, 1993 debut) — mmbhof.org/mountain-bike-hall-of-fame/2008/brian-lopes/
- Brian Lopes, Wikipedia (born Sept 6, 1971, Mission Viejo; turned pro at 17; MTB from 1993; 9 NORBA / 6 World Cup / 4 World Championship titles; four-cross specialist) — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Lopes
- brianlopes.com — official site (nine National titles, six UCI World Cup wins, four UCI World Champion titles).